Saul Bass Website and “Hitchcock” Font Are Back

Commentary

Stephen Coles on September 4, 2007

For a long time Brendan Dawes’ saulbass.net was probably the most popular online destination for devotees of the great designer and film title director, Saul Bass. The website was lost when Dawes did what many of us do: neglected to renew the domain. Fortunately, it’s back again in most of its former glory at saulbass.tv.

One of the few goodies missing in this reincarnation is the free font download called “Hitchcock”. Used by Dawes throughout the site, Hitchcock was created by designer Matt Terich as an homage to the iconic lettering that so often appeared in Bass’ title work. The font is not a faithful digitization of any particular title sequence or poster — in fact, type designer Nick Shinn notes that Bass didn’t do the actual lettering and veteran Robert Trogman adds that Dave Nagata did most of the drawings — but it does give a general sense of Bass’ rough, hand-cut style.

Hitchcock font by Matt Terich

Matt plans to expand Hitchcock’s character set someday. We hope he’ll add alternates to help it better emulate hand lettering. In the meantime, this version will suffice for the hobbyist when used with care and at smaller sizes.

See more of Matt’s poster art and web development at Design Medicine. He and his wife also recently built an art studio in their backyard with two letterpresses and one screen press for their invitation enterprise, Ink Fancy.

Matt has given us permission to host Hitchcock at Typographica. Download Mac Postscript or Windows TrueType. Please don’t redistribute the font files or post them to any other website. To share the fonts, link to this page — the direct download URLs could change at any moment.

If Hitchcock isn’t quite what you’re after, other fonts in this vein include:

FF Schmelvetica (Chester)
Keener (Ethan Paul Dunham)
Nowwhat (Adam Roe)
FF Folk (Ben Shahn, Maurizio Osti, Jane Patterson)
Bensfolk (Ben Shahn, Howard Lohner)
Anarko (Peter Bruhn)
Brickhouse (Allen Mercer)
Maynard (Patrick Broderick)
Taylors (Stuart Sandler)
Darkheart (Ray Larabie)
Gorg (Kou Nakamura)
Dolce Vita (Ian Swift)
Vertigo (Raymond Brekelmans)

12 Responses

to “Saul Bass Website and “Hitchcock” Font Are Back”

keith morris says:

09.04.07 at 4:31 pm

The lettering artist that did the lettering for the Saul Bass titles was Art Goodman.
Stephen Coles says:

09.04.07 at 5:32 pm

Yes, Robert Trogman reveals as much in the discussion that I linked.
Matt Terich says:

09.20.07 at 11:15 pm

Interesting! I didn’t know that. Maybe the full character set will be called Arty Good Men… if I ever finish (volunteers welcome)

-Matt T.
Jelle says:

11.02.07 at 3:21 pm

One of my favourite fonts, but was never sure if I could really use it, because I don’t remember if it is freeware. Is it?
Stephen Coles says:

11.03.07 at 12:16 pm

You’re free to use it on commercial projects. You’re just not free to distribute it.
Judy Gaddis says:

11.18.07 at 5:46 pm

Thank you so much for the Hitchcock font. What a huge gift for my font library. You are so generous! My customer was very impressed, as I used it to dramatize our church ad at Easter (Christ’s resurrection).

Thanks again, and, by the way, I love your site. It is informative and educational.
Antonio Gutierrez says:

01.24.08 at 12:17 am

Thank you so much for this Hitchcock font. Ever since I got it, I can’t stop from trying to use it every chance I get. I was just wondering if someone knew where I could find the Gorg font because the link seems to be dead.
James Bowskill says:

04.09.08 at 9:49 pm

Antonio, you can find Gorg here: http://fontazilla.com/fonts.html
Stephen Coles says:

04.09.08 at 11:36 pm

Thank you, James. The link in the post is updated.
Carolyn says:

07.14.08 at 7:47 am

Hi! Where can I dowload free hitchcock font on internet? I would like use it in a short film with friends.

Many thanks,
Carolyn.
Stephen Coles says:

07.14.08 at 8:04 am

Carolyn - Scroll up. The link is in the article.
Michael Morris says:

05.14.09 at 2:14 pm

I am also a past employee, 78-79, and knew and had nothing but respect for Art both professionally and personally.

The story I got on the hand was a hand grenade during the big war.
I think the hand and the way he would take a new Pilot Point pen and gab into his desk top to trash the point had a lot to do with the finished product. that and porous paper. Sketch small and blow up on the stat camera.

Yes Saul did sign the posters (multiple versions until the signature was just right for each) but the artwork, lettering and feel for so many of these beautiful posters was pure Art.

I doubt seriously you would have a hard time finding anyone who worked with and for Art Goodman who did not love the man.